Category: Missoula

2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR: KettleHouse Brewing Co., Missoula, MT (July 9th, Brewery Stop #38) (recovered post) The 38th and final brewery visited during our cross-country beer discovery tour (click to read about the whole trip) was the KettleHouse Brewing Company in Missoula Montana. The Northside Brewery location was our final tour stop for Missoula and the trip, unfortunately they were not pouring when we arrived. Luckily I’ve been to this and their downtown south location on a prior trip to Missoula and had experienced the beers before. If you go to Missoula, make sure you get to the breweries prior to 8pm. By law, breweries/taprooms are not allowed to serve after 8pm, but can do growler fills until 9pm. I know this doesn’t make sense, but that’s how it is. We finished up our dinner and sampling at Flathead Lake and did the quick drive up to KettleHouse thinking we’d get there in time, but we didn’t. As you can see from the pictures, they are located in an old shipping terminal along the railroad tracks. It’s kind of a hard place to get to if you don’t have navigation, so make sure you have that or a good map. …

2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR: Flathead Lake Brewing Co., Missoula, MT (July 9th, Brewery Stop #37) (recovered post) The 37th brewery visited during our cross-country beer discovery tour (click to read about the whole trip) was the Flathead Lake Brewing Company and Pubhouse in Missoula Montana. It was approaching dinner time, and we decided to visit Flathead Lake Brewings downtown Missoula location to get some food and try their lineup. This is a higher-end restaurant and pubhouse with no brewery production on site, but they do have a great setting for hanging out. The building they are located in has two floors. The upstairs is the ‘sports bar’ type vibe, the first floor room is more for the ‘fine dining’ approach. We did take a look at the upstairs, but decided for the beer tasting and dinner to stick with the first floor. As this was not the first time I’d been to this pubhouse, I was looking forward to trying their beers again, and perhaps some of the guest taps they had available from Blackfoot, Blacksmith, and Big Sky. We settled on a table towards the back of the dining area, and ordered up a round of their tasters and …

2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR: Draught Works Brewery, Missoula, MT (July 9th, Brewery Stop #36) (recovered post) The 36th brewery visited during our cross-country beer discovery tour (click to read about the whole trip) was the Draught Works Brewery in Missoula Montana. The third stop in Missoula brought us to a larger and popular brewery just down the street from Imagine Nation. This brewery used to be a recycling center, and it’s got a really local vibe going on. When we pulled up, we were super lucky and got a parking spot, we didn’t know that there was live music going on, but alas there was a band playing and their patio and inside were really packed with people. As summer hangouts go, you couldn’t do much better than this for a wide range of beers, comfortable setting, and great music. The patio is quite large, and the production tanks are just inside the door. The main room is huge with tons of tables and a long bar to sit or order at. We found ourselves a couple of spots at the bar, taking turns standing. The bartenders were really busy, but willing to pour us a full lineup of samples …

2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR: Imagine Nation Brewing Co., Missoula, MT (July 9th, Brewery Stop #35) (recovered post) The 35th brewery visited during our cross-country beer discovery tour (click to read about the whole trip) was Imagine Nation Brewing Coompany in Missoula Montana. We finished up at Big Sky pretty quickly and headded back towards town, stopping at this new brewery called Imagine Nation. None of us had head of this brewery before, so it was a pleasant surprise to have found them. They have a smaller 7bbl system that they produce a couple of year-round beers and a bunch of seasonals and one-offs with. They location is easily found on Broadway along the Clark Fork River. They have a parking lot along the east side of the building, so parking shouldn’t be a problem if you seek them out. If you do make the trip, do it during warmer weather so you can enjoy the outdoor patio they have that overlooks the river. It’s really nice and well kept and most excellent to enjoy a beer on. We did sit out there with our pints after we did the tasters. As you can see from the pictures, they have the …

2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR: Big Sky Brewing Company, Missoula, MT (July 9th, Brewery Stop #34) (recovered post) The 34th brewery visited during our cross-country beer discovery tour (click to read about the whole trip) was Big Sky Brewing Co. in Missoula Montana. After visiting family in Bismark North Dakota, we hit the road west and crossed the great barren north, or ‘Fly-over’ country as most call it. We got into Missoula in the afternoon and checked into our hotel, and to refridgerate the beers we had in our trunk. The brewery scene in Missoula wasn’t totally unfamiliar to us as we had visited it a year prior for a few days while on a work trip. We knew that tasters were limited and the amount of beer they could serve a person was restricted per visit, so we planned on just hitting a few breweries for tasters and then finding dinner and going from there. The first brewery we hit as it was closest to the hotel we stayed at was Big Sky. It’s located on the edge of town just off the freeway and it’s pretty easy to find. The production facility and tasting room look like a big …

2015 BEER DISCOVERY TOUR, Portland OR to Portland ME and back…7800 miles later… From late June to early July 2015 I was lucky enough to go on a cross country road trip with Gary and our nephew Devin. We drove my car from Portland Oregon to Portland Maine in just about three weeks. We took a ‘central US’ path East and came back taking a more northern passage. Regarding where we went each day, we made it to about 40 breweries and a handful of tap-houses, bars, and brewpubs to find local beers and food along the way. While the long distance driving was challenging some days (10+ hrs at a time), we really enjoyed the trip with it’s the ever-changing scenery and wonderful cities, towns, and people we met. Before leaving on the trip, we gathered and then took a couple of cases of local specialty beers for our friend Rusty in Pittsburgh. The sucky part was that while we wanted the beers to not get ruined by the heat, we ended up unloading and reloading it a LOT as we stopped each night. This is a valuable learning experience, to stick to mailing stuff like beer and wine, …